


in other words

by glorious_clio



Category: The Lady Astronaut Series - Mary Robinette Kowal
Genre: F/M, Reunion Sex, Seeing Stars, The Calculating Stars, The Fated Sky, The Relentless Moon, good lord these two are ridiculous and i love them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:40:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25569877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_clio/pseuds/glorious_clio
Summary: Set during the epilogue of The Relentless Moon. President Wargin throws a party for the astronauts returning from the first Mars expedition. But three days isn't quite enough of a re-honeymoon period for the Lady Astronaut and her husband, the Head Engineer.
Relationships: Elma York/Nathaniel York
Kudos: 10





	in other words

**Author's Note:**

> Goodness, I love these books so much. I've scoured tumblr looking for fic, this can't be the first one, can it? This is unbeta'd so please excuse any mistakes. 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdQhU5JKMno
> 
> 'cause you eclipse every wonder of the cosmos.  
> It's almost unfair to them, but you're the one I want most.  
> -David Sikabwe

The Lady Astronaut was still waaaaaaay too bubbly as President Wargin’s staff discreetly led her and Nathaniel to the Washington suite where they were staying the night. She clung to his arm and nearly vibrated from the tension in her body, smiling at the back of the man in front of them. 

He opened the door, turned on the light, and stepped back, wishing them good night. 

“Thank you, you too!” Elma said, her voice much too high. Nathaniel nodded at him as well, and shut the door. 

Elma exhaled everything in her lungs as quickly as possible, then took a slow, deep breath in, held it, exhaled again, more slowly this time, and slipped out of her shoes.

“Need me to count? Exponents? The trusty Fibonacci sequence?” Nathaniel asked. 

“No. I might take another Miltown.” 

He frowned. “You already took one before the party, and all the alcohol...”

She sighed. “You’re probably right.” She turned and crashed into his chest, delighting in the fact that she _could_. “Unzip me? Maybe a shower will help.”

“Mmmm,” he said, carefully unzipping the one fancy dress she owned that was hopelessly out of fashion. He traced his hands over her back, toying with her bra strap but not doing anything about it, yet. Elma responded by sliding her arms under his jacket. He began dropping kisses into her hair. “I can think of something else that might help.”

“Oh?” There was a small smile in her voice, the first real one in several hours. Nathaniel wished he could see it, but then remembered she was home, really home, and he would see it again and again and again. He wondered how it would look in the sunlight on Mars. 

Because he was sure about one thing: she wasn’t leaving again without him. 

Elma was untucking his shirt from his trousers now. “Are you going to turn me off and then cycle me back up?”

“You never turn off your brain, even during sex.”

“Not true,” she said, stepping back. “You’ve managed to turn it off a couple of times at least.”

“My highest accomplishment, then.” He grinned at her.

“Put it on your resume for the Mars Colony.” Elma winked.

He laughed. “I don’t think the IAC would thank me for that particular skill.” 

"No, but I will." Her gown was loose around her shoulders and she began to shimmy out of it.

Nathaniel began the tedious process of getting out of his own tux and the crisp white shirt he bought when he realized none of his other ones were without ink and/or pit stains. Three years without Elma and he’d gone to the dogs, in more ways than one. 

She had been out of mandatory medical quarantine, been properly _home_ three days, he still had to tell her about the poison attempt. 

But not tonight. She knew the broad strokes of the surgery though, and standing in her bra and underwear, she reached out now and touched the scar on his abdomen, which was ticklish after three years of being touch starved. 

“Elma,” he said, crushing her back to him, pulling her in for a kiss. She was always taller when she came back to Earth, a quirk of gravity. She’ll be back to her normal height in a few months, but now he doesn’t have to crane down to kiss her, even without her heels. 

She pulled out of the kiss to nuzzle and nip at the column of his neck. His hands roamed around and this time unhooked her bra. 

“Stop the clock,” Elma said, and his hands immediately stilled. He should have slowed down, shouldn’t have presumed- 

“I need to use the bathroom, and maybe some water.”

“You ok?”

“Yes! Yes. I promise.” 

Nathaniel believed her. Her voice was in a lower register now, one that usually meant good things. Some of the tension had melted off her face. Elma was looking him in the eyes, her mouth insouciant and soft, rosy from being kissed. She pulled off her bra and wrapped it around his neck like a scarf. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her breasts, drooping in gravity, as she strode to the bathroom. 

Nathaniel already missed her. 

He opened a dresser drawer where their things had been unpacked by efficient White House staff and shoved the bra inside. He also picked up her dress from where it pooled on the floor and draped it over a chair. Nathaniel could hear Elma humming, running water very efficiently (space made everyone less wasteful). He turned on a lamp and turned off the overhead light before crawling into bed, flipping down the blankets. 

He didn’t take off his boxers yet. They’d had some pretty miraculous reunion sex in the last few days, but it had still been three years before that. He didn’t want to... crowd her? He’d have to see what she was in the mood for. 

What a delightful thought. 

In the bathroom, Elma was trying to work out as much tension as she could manage. She started by washing off the makeup with the coldest water the tap had to offer, then combing out her hair. Still edgy, she tried some jumping jacks, but her breasts stopped her, she wasn’t re-acclimated to their weight yet. She didn’t regret giving the bra to Nathaniel though, his eyes on her were better than any of their letters, secret codes notwithstanding. 

He was going to start to worry about her if she stayed in here much longer, so she took an enormous drink of water and slipped out into the bedroom, flipping off the bathroom light. 

She hurried to bed, pulling the blankets over her and snuggling down into him. 

“Hey,” he said, wrapping his arms around her.

“Hi.” She planted three kisses on his collarbone, and he shivered. She didn’t even pause, reaching to toy with his nipple. 

“See here, I’m supposed to be turning _your_ brain off,” he said.

“Then you’ll need to work faster than that,” Elma replied, skirting to the other nipple. 

Warmth surged through him and he flipped her on her back. “No.”

“No?”

He shook his head. “I’m going to take all the time I want.”

All the breath wooshed out of her, and this time it wasn’t a technique her therapist taught her. Elma nodded. He leaned down to kiss her again, and again and again, until she was squirming underneath him, which was doing a lot for him, it had to be allowed. 

“Nathaniel,” she begged, “Come on, honey, show me your rocket, I’m go for launch.”

He chuckled, gently kissing down her neck to her breasts. President Nicole Wargin took a lot of attention off of the Lady Astronaut, but it wouldn’t do to leave such obvious hickeys on her neck when they left the New White House in the morning. 

Her shoulders, however.... 

She almost bucked off the bed when he briefly bit down, then applied himself more delicately. Elma York liked adrenaline. 

“Patience, I’m trying to turn your brain off, remember?”

She whimpered, an honest to G-d sob, her hot hands felt frantic over his back and across his ass. She reached around to grab at his cock but he dragged her hand away. 

“Please hurry, I can’t wait, _please,_ Nathaniel...”

He took pity on her and threw the blankets off. The air conditioning was a shock to his already sweaty skin and she started trembling. He scooted off the bed and, grabbing her ankles, pulled her to the edge of the mattress. While she was muttering a litany of yeses, he peeled off her underwear and slowed way, waaaaaaay down.

Elma threw her arms over her eyes as Nathaniel opened her up, so, so gently. He started with the softest, lightest kisses on her thighs, pulling her knees over his shoulders. By the time he finally, finally, _finally_ made his way to where she wanted him most, her back was arching and all but pushing her hips down into his mouth, one hand in his hair, the other on her own breasts. 

He was saying something, but she couldn’t register the words, only the sensations as his mouth slowly mapped her, sending coded messages to her brain that she could only translate as _yes_ and _good_ and _more more more_. No matter how much she begged him, he refused to quicken his pace. 

He had one hand on the outside of her thigh, another possessively on her stomach, but when she asked him, cried out for him to use his hands, he just laughed at her. At one point he pulled back and grabbed a pillow from the bed, tucking it under his knees. And then. he. didn’t. stop. 

She reached her peak and stayed there, trembling and clinging to the sheets, his hair, the pillows as if they could bring her back to Earth. Time stopped, or sped by, or something she didn’t know, she didn’t know _anything,_ but before she died he kissed his way back down her thighs, easing off of her so she could recover. 

Could she recover? 

He kissed her knee and nuzzled it gently. “Status report?”

She moaned in response. Spent, exhausted, couldn’t string two words together. But so good, and maybe a little melted upon reentry.

“Mission success,” he laughed, and eased off his knees. He helped her move back into the bed and tucked a pillow under her neck. 

She reached for his hip and said, “You haven’t had a successful mission yet.”

“Sure I have.” He leaned down to kiss her on the forehead. 

“Nathaniel, c’mere.” She had both hands on either side of his hips now, framing his very obvious erection. 

“You can barely move. I can take care of this myself.”

She smiled shyly. “Can I watch?”

He looked at her like she was covered in stardust (which, in a way, she was).

“You can have everything you want,” he growled and kissed her mouth again. Elma surged into the kiss and dragged him down next to her. 

She pulled away and raised her eyebrows expectantly. Now it was his turn to be shy, but he pushed past it, kicking off his boxers. Under her steady gaze, Nathaniel began stroking his aching cock. She propped herself up on her elbow to watch. He didn’t need to see himself, he normally did this while his eyes were on her letters, or closed altogether. 

The view tonight was much better, as she caught her lower lip in her teeth and flushed at the sight of him working himself over. His fingers tightened, his hand worked faster, his thumb spread the precum around, an engineer knew the importance of lubricants.

It didn’t take long, not with her watching like that, not with her taste still in his mouth, not with her warmth right here in the same bed. All he could see was her. Elma made soothing, encouraging words, gathering him in her arms as he basked in the aftershocks. 

“You’re the best thing I’ve ever seen,” she whispered in his ear and he pulled her tighter to him. He didn’t reply, just held her close, sharing the same center of gravity.

Although... maybe they needed that shower after all. 


End file.
